Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight 1970

Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight 1970

64 Minutes

In late summer of 1970, over 600,000 people flooded the Isle of Wight, a small island off the coast of England. They were there for the third and final (until recently) Isle of Wight music festival, a multi-day concert that is sometimes seen to mark the end of the great festival era of the ’60s. Unlike the communal, utopian bliss of Woodstock, Isle of Wight was plagued with issues. The local council was none to happy to have their bucolic island littered with dirty hippies and forced the festival to relocate to a less favorable location on the island. There were far too many people, some of whom didn’t plan on paying, fences were knocked over, fires were set, including on stage, trash piled up and bad vibes abounded. A shanty town popped up, which was promptly dubbed Desolation Row, after the Dylan song. Some festival goers complained it was all about money and that the promoters had erected a “psychedelic concentration camp,” while MC Rikki Farr lost it on stage and berated the audience: “We put this festival on you bastards, with a lot of love. We worked for one year for you people and you wanna break our walls down and you wanna destroy it? Well, go to hell!” It wasn’t quite Altamont, but it did feel like the end of something. That aside, it boasted an impressive line up, including the Who, Miles Davis, the Doors and Jimi Hendrix, in what would be one of his final performances.

Director Murray Lerner made an earlier film about the festival called Message to Love as well as one about the Newport Folk Festival, imaginatively called Festival. He’s returned to both, assembling the Bob Dylan footage for a DVD called The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965 and now he’s put together a new film of Leonard Cohen’s performance. Cohen seems an incongruous figure for a huge festival, but his set turned out to be a highlight and provided some much needed intelligence and tranquility. Previously, there was only an all too brief clip featured in Message to Love, but now we have an hour’s worth of just Cohen. Lerner can perhaps be forgiven from jumping on the Cohen bandwagon. This release (available as a CD/DVD set) caps a remarkable decade for Cohen, one that saw him return to recording after nearly 10 years and return to the stage for a triumphant tour, documented on the recent Live in London album.

In 1970, Cohen was at the beginning of his career, with only two albums to his credit and this was by far the largest crowd he had played in front of. Cohen, a published poet and novelist first, was in his thirties when he began recording and so was slightly older than many of his fellow performers. He also never really bought into the hippie dream or the idealism of the ’60s, although he does call the crowd “a large nation, but still weak” and tell them, somewhat quixotically, “one of these days we’re going to have this land for our own.” Cohen didn’t really felt tied to his time, which is why his music has endured so well. Putting songs like “Suzanne” or “Bird on a Wire,” next to bombastic, heavily electrified acts like Ten Years After or prog monstrosities Emerson, Lake and Palmer (both featured in Lerner’s original film), shows how timeless his songs are and how much he followed his own instincts, rather than trends.

Taking the stage on the final day at around four in the morning, Cohen, dressed in khaki pants and a safari jacket, looked a little scruffy, but also radiated a quiet dignity and class not found in most of the other performers. Even when young, he seemed old. He is not a great performer in the sense that he puts on a show, but a great performer because he has an undeniable presence and because his songs are so excellent. Backed by a terrific band, dubbed the Army, including female back up singers, his producer Bob Johnston and Charlie Daniels, Cohen draws mostly from his first two albums. Amazingly, the disgruntled crowd quiets for him as he performs songs that are more suited for smoky clubs than huge outdoor festivals: “Stranger Song,” “Famous Blue Raincoat” and “Sing Another Song, Boys,” which appeared (live) on his next album Songs of Love and Hate. He dedicates “The Partisan” to Joan Baez, who had performed earlier, the band does a rollicking, country hoedown version of “Tonight Will be Fine,” and Cohen, without moving much, simply commands the stage. It’s doubtful any other performers that weekend introduced songs with comments like, “I was coming off amphetamines and pursuing a blonde lady that I met in a Nazi poster.” His intelligence, literary background and courtliness separate him from everyone else there.

Live at the Isle of Wight is shot in a straightforward, no frills manner, which works perfectly for Cohen. There’s not a lot of cutting and the stock is somewhat grainy and a little raw, which gives it a verité feel. The major flaw to the film is that director Lerner wants to have both a concert film and a documentary. He shot new interviews with Kris Kristofferson, who was booed at the festival, Baez, Bob Johnston and Joan Collins, who first performed Cohen’s songs. While they’re mildly interesting, Lerner idiotically interrupts the concert with them, disrupting the flow and momentum. Either he should have stuck them at the beginning or relegated them to the extras. They’re not necessary, as the draw of the film is Cohen. A few crowd shots of the unwashed hordes give some context, but the interviews are a serious misstep, pulling the viewer out of the moment. It’s also unclear as to why the CD runs longer than the film. Lerner only uses part of “Diamonds in the Mine” for the introduction, which implies some songs have been cut. However, none of this is enough to detract from the strength of Cohen and the Army’s performance. As his recent shows have reminded audiences of how great he is, this is a fascinating glimpse of him at the beginning of his career and a reminder that he’s always been great.